These Things They Share
by SweetDragonSeeker
Summary: Reylo drabbles to get them out of my head.
1. Chapter 1

**Can you be shipping trash if you aren't positive you ship it? Either way, have a couple Reylo drabbles. :P (I took a lil liberty with the depth/workings of their bond. Fair warning.)**

 **Yeah... I don't own Star Wars. Shocking, I know.**

 **SSS**

She feels the familiar pull, the ripple in reality as her mind- or maybe her spirit- abandons her own space.

"No. Not now."

The Force doesn't heed her protest any more than it ever has before. She closes her eyes, tries to will herself back to her own body. She doesn't want to see him right now. Doesn't want to listen to his smug superiority. Doesn't want to know that his mother's death means nothing to him.

It doesn't matter. When she opens her eyes, the room around her is all black and shiny metal, and Ren stands on the other side of the space with his back to her and his hands braced against the wall.

For a moment, fury fills Rey, burning through her and almost blurring away the grief. Then, just as suddenly, it all drains away.

He is shaking. The hands pressed against the wall are fisted, and the metal beneath them undulates and buckles. Around him, the lights flicker and pop and burst. His pain floods through the bond they share, swirling and blending with hers until she cannot tell which of them feels more broken.

Whatever his mother meant to him in life, in death, she is everything.

Ren doesn't react when Rey touches him. Doesn't even flinch, even though beneath her hands his body feels as real as if they weren't half a galaxy apart. For once, it doesn't even matter to her that he isn't wearing a shirt. All that matters is how solid he feels, how feverishly warm his skin is to the touch, how deep the anguish is between them.

A sob bubbles up from her chest as she leans in, presses her forehead to the space between his shoulder blades, wraps her fingers around his fists. She wonders bleakly if, in his heartbreak, he even realizes that she's there. That she can feel _everything._

Tears slide down her cheek, fall to trace the valley of his spine. Very slowly, his fists uncurl. Then they clench back down, knuckles going white, with her fingers trapped securely between his.


	2. Chapter 2

**Drabble #2**

 **SSS**

She has no reason to be upset.

 _Whhhmm._ The lightsaber hums through the air as she spins, the deadly song of the blade doing nothing to ease the tension in her stomach.

She was never interested in Finn. Not romantically. There is no reason for her to resent his relationship with Rose.

She jerks to the left, the movement clumsier than she likes, and the saber growls as if in protest.

No reason at all, except that, for the first time in her life, she had felt important to someone for just who she was, and now…

Now she matters to nobody.

 _Whhhhmmmm_

A pair of warm gloved hands slide down her arms, and his voice murmurs in her ears.

You matter to me."

She grits her teeth.

"Leave." the saber arcs left. "Me." right. "Alone." Up. Down. Left again.

He ignores her, and his hands slide down to cover hers, pulling her back flush to his chest even as he adjusts her grip on the weapon in her hands. Her teeth grind harder, and she resists the urge to spin around, knowing that he isn't really there. That she is the only one who can see, hear, feel him.

"Relax." he murmurs, and for a second she stiffens more, instinctively resisting. But he is warm and solid against her back, and for a moment, she could almost believe he was telling the truth. That she matters to him as more than just another being with a strong connection to the Force. Slowly, her muscles release, lulled by the false comfort in his words. He guides the next few movements, the only sound the soft singing of the blade, and she lets him; if he wants to aid and abet the enemy, who is she to complain?


	3. Chapter 3

**So another (longer) drabble, based on a prompt I saw about one of them patching the other up. May continue, but I'm just posting what I have as I finish them, and this is what I got for the moment. :P**

 **SSS**

"Get up." something that feels vaguely like a boot prods into Ren's right side, and he grunts, eyes peeling wide as his mouth opens to release a tide of mixed blood and bile. For a few moments, it's all he can do to turn his head to the side and heave as lights flash behind his eyes and jolts of pain shoot through his body. Then he collapses back, exhausted by effort that it shouldn't have taken.

She nudges him again and he wishes she wouldn't.

"You have to get up." her hands fist in his shirt, try to haul him- twice her size and dead weight- to his feet. He blinks at her, eyes unfocused. She's panting, trying to get him up, a flush of exertion flooding her soot-grayed cheeks, and behind her he can just make out the smoldering outline of what must be his fighter, half-buried in grey sand and missing one side. He can't remember what happened. Something in his head feels...disconnected. "Come on," she hisses, jerking at him again, and finally succeeds in dragging him to his feet. The world spins around him as soon she stops supporting him, and he starts to fall again.

"Ben!" there is panic in her voice. There is often panic in her voice. Or anger. Fear. He likes it better when she's thoughtful. Or hopeful. Hopeful...is best. "Ben, you have to stay up. You have to get out of here."

He shakes his head, tries to clear it. His suit is plastered to his skin, just below his left ribs, sticky and too warm, and it hurts. _Breathing_ hurts.

"Ben." her hands- cold, so refreshingly cold- cup his face, forcing him to look at her. Her eyes are so bright it hurts to look at them, but he can't look away either. She holds his gaze with the sheer force of her will. "You have to go east." she nods in the right direction without ever taking her eyes from his. "You understand me? You have to stay up. You have to walk."

He tries to nod, and the world wobbles again. She steadies him with her hands on his chest, turns him. "Go. Go now." a push to his back, and he stumbles forward, into the light of the double suns. One step. Two. Three. He wants to ask why, what's in the east, why is she there- and then he realizes, as that place in his mind where they connect flickers for a painful split second. She was never there at all.

 **SSS**

"The hell?!" Finn yelps, and Rey turns, hand on her lightsaber. Then her knuckles go white on the grip, her face losing its color, and she starts running. The black-clad figure in the distance has stumbled, fallen; he doesn't get up.

Finn is fit, but not fit enough to keep up, and by the time he reaches them, Rey has already torn open the torso of Kylo Ren's battlesuit to reveal the jagged-edged puncture just below his ribs. The piece of metal that had inflicted the damage lies beside them, removed in order to remove the suit and examine the wound. The demon himself is completely unconscious, though his chest rises and falls just enough to inform Finn that he isn't dead- at least not yet.

"It may have punctured his lung." she says, her voice not quite clinical; it has an edge Finn can't quite identify. She continues her investigation of the injury, and Finn folds his arms, content.

"Good riddance to the bastard then." he growls, and for a moment Rey doesn't respond. Her fingers have stopped probing the edge of the casm in Ren's flesh, the ribs above. Then her lightsaber glows to life, brilliant as a star against the dull sand, and satisfaction rises in Finn's chest.

 _Yes. Make sure he's gonna die._

She lifts the weapon gingerly, moves it slowly.

Kylo Ren howls to life, his face contorted with pain as he jerks away from the gleaming blue blade. Rey drops the saber, now lightless, and pins him back to the sand with her hands on his shoulders, repeating his name over and over as though there's something in him besides a monster. As though she-

Finn's eyes fall to the bloody gash in the other man's side, and his mouth falls open. He'd thought that Rey missed her mark. That her fear of this man, her memories of the things he'd done, had made her hesitate too long. But no.

Where once there was a gaping, bleeding hole, there is now an angry, sealed burn.

"It's alright, Ben, you're alright."

Finn hears her voice as though through water, watches as though through a heat screen as she and Ren- her bloodied hands still on his shoulders, his gloved fingers wrapped around her wrists- stare each other in the eyes, both panting and shaking, communicating without words as though he and the rest of the world aren't there. As though they aren't on opposite sides of a godforsaken _war._


	4. Chapter 4

**Another one I may continue. Or rewrite. Doesn't quite capture the thought right now. But. Anyway.**

 **SSS**

It's the first time he's felt her reach for him, and the sensation stops him dead in his tracks, forcing the two troupers behind him to step sharply to the side to avoid a sudden collision with the Supreme Leader. The call is sudden and sharp, almost like a scream, and gone so fast it leaves him reeling.

 _Rey?_

He reaches back, hungry for the contact after so many weeks of silence, but just as his control has improved these past few months since Snoke's death, so has hers, and now that she's done metaphorically screaming in his ear, she's blocking their connection. Hard.

 _Rey._ he tugs on the bond between them, something he imagines as a door not unlike that of the Falcon, and manages to pry it open a crack. Enough to see her, but not the surroundings he has only just become adept at viewing. She fades into view gradually, and he's not sure she's even aware he's managed to reach her. Her body appears pressed against the wall opposite him, her head tilted down and away as though she's looking at something he can't see. He takes a step toward her.

 _Rey?_

She jerks her head up, shock registering in every line of her body, and he hits an invisible wall that he knows wasn't there a moment before. Rey's eyes are wild, and he can feel her trying to shut down the link between them. To hide from him. Unable to get any closer, he sticks a metaphorical foot in the door she's trying to close, fighting to keep it open.

 _Rey, what's wrong?_ It shouldn't matter. Her fear should please him. But it doesn't. It doesn't please him at all.

She shakes her head, almost desperately, and he pushes harder. Slowly, his determination overcomes her fear, until they're no longer standing in a corridor on his ship.

Instead, they're standing at the bottom of a deep ravine, the nearly vertical walls comprised of blue grey stone. Almost directly above, twin orange-gold suns cast their rays down, harsh and a little too bright, illuminating what it was she was staring at when she first came into his view.

Bodies litter the dusty rock, at least a dozen scaley carcasses still smoking here and there from the cauterization of the lightsaber's touch. Something he recognizes as rough clothing covers the bodies, and primitive weapons lie where they fell when their owners were slain. He takes it all in, bile rising in his throat as he forces memory back to silence. Then his gaze moves back to Rey, and he feels his eyes widen. He hadn't realized how much of herself she'd been able to hide before.

Her clothes are torn, gashes running from shoulder to elbow, hip to knee, across the width of her belly, and the wounds beneath are still ragged and weeping. Blood drips from both her nostrils, painting her lips and chin with red. Her hair is wet with sweat, clinging to her cheeks, and her eyes-

The emotions he finds in her eyes hit him like a hammer, and she nearly succeeds in forcing him back out as he struggles to filter through the tangle of rage and pain and stark cold fear. Fear. Not fear of her attackers, but-

Understanding flickers through him, and he takes another step forward.

 _Rey. Tell me where you are._ There is no hesitation in his words, and he wants her to hear that. To know that he doesn't care what happened.

She shakes her head vehemently, droplets of blood splattering to the ground. He reaches out, cups her cheek in one leather-clad palm. She closes her eyes, turns her face as far away as he will let her.

 _I can help you._ He tells her, but she doesn't respond.

He's never done this. Not since that first time they met, when they were enemies and strangers. He doesn't want to do it now.

He leans in, pressing his forehead to hers, feeling her ice cold skin against his, and reaches his mind out to hers. More intimate and intrusive than the Force bond they share has ever been. He doesn't want to do this.

 _Let me in._ he pleads.

Her eyes squeeze tight shut, two tears squeezing out to trail down her cheeks, over his gloved fingers. And she shatters.

By the time their thoughts are each their own again, she is leaning into him, face buried in his chest as she cries. He holds her there, lips against her sweaty hair, giving what reassurance he can with his continued presence, the tenuous solidity of his body against hers. But it takes only moments for her to realize what happened, what she allowed him to see, and then she jerks away. She sinks to huddle on the ground instead, tears and blood still flowing down her face.

He kneels beside her, presses a kiss to her forehead.

 _I'm going to come get you. Wait for me._

He leaves before she has a chance to respond, and again he's striding down the corridor of his new flagship, on his way to the bay where his fighter is docked.

 _Wait for me._


	5. Chapter 5

**Direct continuation of chapter 3. :P**

 **SSS**

Finn stares through the glass wall separating the impromptu infirmary from the rest of their tumble-down base, and wonders if there is a single race in the galaxy that hasn't been forced to invent a word for betrayal.

On the other side of the window, Kylo Ren slumbers fitfully, drugged as deep as they can get him because with one exception, the Resistance would rather see him dead than conscious enough to use the Force or swing a Saber. He's almost completely healed now, the puncture in his lung mended at Rey's insistence.

 _Betrayal._

Sometimes, he wonders why he doesn't just do it. Shoot the bastard through the thin sheet of glass and have it over with. What does he care that he's Leia's son? Han's son? He's Kylo Ren.

But Rey asked him to keep Ben Solo safe.

Finn's hands clench at his sides.

Rey can't be here all the time. With as few of the Resistance as remain, she has duties and responsibilities just like the rest of them, even beyond being the last remaining Jedi. So she asks Finn to guard him when she cannot. Because Finn is the only one she truly trusts in the wake of Leia's death.

He hates that he wants to deserve that trust, even at the cost of Ren's continued existence.

At the moment though, Rey is on the far side of the room, across the bed from Finn's window. She's sitting braced against the wall, her head bowed and arms wrapped loosely around her knees, and if Finn didn't know any better he'd say she'd fallen asleep.

 **SSS**

"They can't keep me here forever." his voice, dark and rich with frustration, rolls out of the darkness, crashing over Rey like she imagines a wave would do.

"Maybe." she agrees. She can't say he's wrong; their supply of sedatives is already depleted. A few more weeks at most, and they'll have to find another way to keep him contained.

His resentment washes over her, and beneath that a clawing sense of anxiety. He is trapped here, in his own shadows. They won't let him out.

"Are they going to kill me?" he asks derisively. He knows they want to. He also knows that she won't let them. She thought at first that her protection would gal him, but he seems to accept it without question.

She doesn't rise to the bait. For a few moments, there is only silence.

"Why do you keep coming back?" his voice is sullen now, and right behind her left ear. She resists the urge to turn or step away.

"Why do you keep letting me in?" she retorts. The bond they share isn't enough for her to enter his mind without his consent. Their bond exists between them, rather than inside either. For her to enter his thoughts like this, without difficulty time after time, he has to allow it.

It is his turn to refuse an answer. Instead, the darkness around her begins to swirl, and shapes begin to coalesce, slowly replacing the shadows with light and color. Something inside Rey relaxes.

 **SSS**

Finn checks the time on the wall. He could be doing something. Surely he has better things to do. He could be with Rose, or sparring with Po, or... something. Anything, other than watching Rey not watch Kylo Ren.

He doesn't move.

 **SSS**

She's never seen a sea so blue.

"Where are we?" she can't hide the wonder in her voice. He has seen so many more places than she has, and though she would never say it aloud, she is grateful for how generous he is with his memories. For the places he has shown her in the space between them.

Sitting with his back against a rock a few yards from her, his arms folded across his chest, Kylo shrugs.

"I don't remember the name of the planet."

"It's beautiful." she whispers, but her eyes soon return to him as he gazes out at the water. He is beautiful too, in his own way. Beautiful, and broken.

A wave crashes up on the sand, washing up to touch the tips of their boots. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knows she can't stay here much longer. Her break must almost be up. But she can't leave him like this. Not when his melancholy seeps into her bones.

He doesn't respond when she slumps down beside him.

"I'm sorry." she tells him, very quietly. He shrugs again, and after a few hesitant moments she lets her head just rest against his shoulder, trying to offer comfort.

By the time she has to leave him, he has begun to lean back.

 **SSS**

He wishes Rey wouldn't look at him when she leaves Ren's room. Wouldn't stop to talk to him. Wouldn't be so completely calm and collected and _certain._

But she does, and she is. She stops to ask him how he is, how Rose is, what his assignments are like for the day. As if she hasn't done anything wrong. Anything that might go against everything they're fighting for.

And she thanks him. She wraps her arms around him in a grateful hug and thanks him for taking care of Ben. Of Kylo Ren.

He hugs her back hard and stares through the glass. On his bed, Ren's head tilts, his fingers twitching in his slumber.

Betrayal. He can only hope it's for the right reasons.


End file.
